One in five children in Gaza City is malnourished, UN aid agency says

One in five children in Gaza City is malnourished and the cases increases every day, said the Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) of the UN.

In a statement published Thursday, the general commissioner of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, quoted a colleague saying to him: “People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are corpses.”

More than 100 international assistance organizations and human rights groups have also warned against mass famine – urging governments to act.

Israel, which controls the entry of all supplies to Gaza, says that there is no siege and blame Hamas for any case of malnutrition.

The UN, however, warned that the level of aid between Gaza is “a net” and that the hunger crisis in the territory “has never been so disastrous”.

In his statement on Thursday, Lazzarini said that “more than 100 people, the vast majority of them, children, would have died of hunger”.

“Most of the children that our teams see are emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying if they do not obtain the treatment they need urgent,” he said, arguing for Israel to “allow humanitarian partners to provide humanitarian assistance without restriction and uninterrupted in Gaza”.

UNRWA workers “vanish more and more hunger at work”, according to Lazzarini, who added: “When the guards cannot find enough to eat, the entire humanitarian system collapses”.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that a large part of the Gaza population was “hungry”.

“I don’t know how you would call it other than mass famine – and it’s artificial,” said WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

In northern Gaza, Hanaa Almadhoun, 40, said that local markets are often without food and other supplies.

“If they exist, they come at exorbitant prices that no ordinary person can afford,” she told the BBC on Whatsapp.

She said that the flour was expensive and difficult to secure, and that people sold “golden and personal goods” to allow it.

The mother of three said that “every new day brings a new challenge” while people are looking for “something edible”.

“With my own eyes, I saw children searching through garbage in search of leftover food,” she added.

During a visit to the Israeli troops in Gaza on Wednesday, Israeli President Israeli Herzog insisted that his country provided humanitarian aid “according to international law”.

But Tahani Shehada, a worker-haid in Gaza, said that people “just try to survive at a time per hour”.

“Even simple things like cooking [and] Taking a shower has become a luxury, “she said.

“I have a baby. He is eight months old. He doesn’t know what fresh fruit looks like,” she added.

Israel arrested deliveries in Gaza in early March after a two-month-old ceasefire. The blockade was partially attenuated after almost two months, but the shortages of food, fuel and drugs have worsened.

Israel, with the United States, has established a new aid system managed by Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

According to the United Nations Human Rights Office, more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army while trying to obtain food aid in the last two months.

He indicates that at least 766 of them were killed near one of the four GHF distribution centers, which are operated by American private security entrepreneurs and are located inside Israeli military areas.

288 other people were killed near the UN and other help convoys.

Israel accused Hamas of prompting chaos near help sites. He says that his troops only pulled warning shots and that they do not intentionally draw civilians.

The GHF says that the UN uses “false” figures from the Ministry of Health managed by Hamas in Gaza.

Najah, a 19 -year -old widow housing in a Gaza hospital, said she was afraid that she was “shot” if she was traveling to help the distribution site.

“I hope they will bring us something to eat and drink. We die of hunger without eating or drinking anything. We live in tents. We are finished,” Najah at the BBC told.

A doctor working in Gaza with a British medical charitable organization, Dr. Aseel, said that Gaza was not close to famine, but “already lived it”.

“My husband went once [to an aid distribution point] And twice, then was shot down and that was all, “she said.

“If we want to die of hunger, whether it is. The path is the path of death.”

Abu Alaa, a market seller in Gaza, said that he and his children “will go to bed hungry every night”.

“We are not alive. We are dead. We apply the whole world to intervene and save ourselves,” he added.

Walaa Fathi, who is eight months pregnant with her third child, said Gazans “is experiencing a disaster and a famine that no one could have imagined.”

“I hope my baby stays in my belly and that I don’t have to give birth in these difficult circumstances,” she told Deir al-Balah’s BBC.